An Army officer and seven other soldiers accused of bullying a private who later killed himself in Afghanistan have been officially charged, Fort Bragg officials said Monday.

Military authorities say 19-year-old Pvt. Danny Chen of New York suffered racial taunts and physical abuse at the hands of soldiers in his company and eventually shot himself last October in a guard tower at Combat Out post Palace near Kandahar.

The eight soldiers will be court-martialed at Fort Bragg. They are part of the 25th Infantry Division, which is based at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, but were under the command of the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan.

The 82nd's commander, Maj. Gen. James Huggins, requested that the courts-martial be held at Fort Bragg. Lt. Gen. Frank G. Helmick, commander of Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps, approved the move and referred the charges to courts-martial April 23.

The soldiers will be arraigned by a military judge in the next few weeks. Individual cases will be scheduled for trial.

The soldiers and charges are:

First Lt. Daniel Schwartz: six specifications of dereliction of duty.

Staff Sgt. Blaine Dugas: violating a lawful general regulation, three charges of dereliction of duty, and making a false official statement

Staff Sgt. Andrew Van Bockel: negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, assault, two counts of maltreatment of a subordinate, three charges of dereliction of duty, and two counts of violating a lawful general regulation.

Sgt. Jeffrey Hurst: negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, maltreatment of a subordinate, two counts of dereliction of duty, and two counts of violating a lawful general regulation.

Sgt. Adam Holcomb: negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat, assault, two counts of maltreatment of a subordinate, dereliction of duty, and four counts of violating a lawful general regulation.

Sgt. Travis Carden: reckless endangerment, assault, two counts of maltreatment of a subordinate, and two counts of violating a lawful general regulation.

Spc. Thomas Curtis: negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, four counts of assault, six counts of maltreatment of a subordinate, and two counts of violation of a lawful general regulation.

Spc. Ryan Offutt: negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, three counts of assault, four counts of maltreatment of a subordinate, and two counts of violation of a lawful general regulation.

IDK, maybe my husband and I just got really good battalion/squadron commanders in the Marines, because they always knew what was going on, and took the time to get to know their Marines (and that's at the 900-1200+ Marines level). With something like this, the XO (major) and CO (lt col) would have known.

Not to mention, the company commanders (captain or major, usually) would have known (that's more the 200-ish Marines level), and it would have been everywhere on the enlisted side whether the abusers wanted it to be or not (the Lance Corporal Underground is an amazing thing). There's no way it would have just stayed at the platoon level. And the fact that it happened on deployment? Heads would have rolled pretty high up for an intense failure of leadership.

/shrug I guess it's just another way the Army's run differently, or approaches leadership differently.

I think the Army is run a lot differently, especially when there are so many more people in it. Plus, Ft. Bragg is so crowded and have been squeezed into accommodating so many people since other bases are shut down. I know most people don't know who anyone is unless they work with them directly. When my husband's unit was deployed, no one even knew where my husband was when he was separated and out sourced out to another camp. Then when he was medivacced back to the states for an injury no one even knew what flight he was on or any information about him arriving. Ft. Bragg isn't really known for having the best of units though.